When a Judge E. Susan Garsh ruled declined earlier this week to throw out the guilty verdict against former Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez in connection with the murder of Odin Lloyd, it didn’t end her work on the case. Still pending is the question of whether Judge Garsh will allow the attorneys to investigate whether a juror lied regarding knowledge of other allegations against Hernandez.
Via Jenny Wilson of the Hartford Courant, Judge Garsh has authorized Hernandez’s lawyers to subpoena Verizon for phone records that would reveal the identity of the person who provided an anonymous tip to defense lawyer James Sultan regarding the alleged juror misconduct.
The tipster told Sultan that the juror in question was present for discussions regarding the separate double-murder case pending against Hernandez, arising from an unrelated shooting in Boston nearly a year before Lloyd was killed. Evidence regarding the other case was barred from the trial regarding Lloyd’s murder.
Judge Garsh stopped short of allowing any additional efforts to investigate the situation.
“Whether the defendant can make a colorable showing sufficient to warrant a post-verdict interview of the juror may well depend on specific details yet to be proffered by the caller and the caller’s credibility, all of which cannot be determined as long as the caller remains anonymous,” Garsh said in the written ruling, via the Courant.
In English, this means that the investigation starts with finding out who made the tip to Sultan, and then learning more about the tipster’s story. Which probably is more than the tipster bargained for when calling Sultan from a blocked number.